Constellation

Summary:
Infatuated Twilight fan Greta Abelove is convinced that Edward Cullen will find her someday--that she and Edward are meant to be. She has to have him. But what will she do when real love finds her, and in the most unbelievable triangle? If she continues to shoot for the moon, will she still land among to stars, or will she plummet back down to earth?

Notes:

5. 5. Truth

"Go ahead and say it," I urged Lucas on the way home that afternoon. We hadn’t seen Charles the rest of the day. I was convinced that Lucas would be beaming in triumph, ‘I-told-you-so’ practically tattooed across his forehead.

"What are you talking about?" Lucas looked genuinely confused.

"About Charles," I said. "You were right. I can’t believe I put my whole heart into believing he was Ed—he was really a vam—I was just stupid."

Lucas draped his arm around my shoulders. "You’re not stupid. That’s just how you are, Greta. So trusting. Not to mention a hopeless romantic." He poked me in the ribs with his free hand.

"Yeah, I guess," I muttered between giggles. Lucas always knew how to turn things light again, to make me feel less of an idiot. "I was still stupid though."

"No," Lucas looked at me seriously now. He stopped walking all of a sudden and sat on the edge of the curb. I did the same, wondering what had changed his mood so abruptly.

"What is it?" I leaned into him.

"You’re not stupid. Actually, you’re smart, just about the wrong people," he gave a hollow chuckle, not really happy, merely anecdotal.

"Um…what?" I was utterly lost.

"I’m ready to tell you the rest of the story now. I know your head must be spinning from what happened with Charles, but I think you need to know." He stared at me. I merely braced myself by squeezing my book tightly against my chest.

"My father, Elias Fitch, didn’t just abandon me on a whim," he began. "He just couldn’t control himself anymore with my mother gone."

He paused, analyzing my face, perhaps to see if I would be prepared for what was to come. He must have seen something I didn’t—I was a nervous wreck whenever Lucas got serious like this—because he continued. "I was a burden to him for eight years. A constant reminder of his lost wife, the one woman who loved him despite what he was. I was sure he despised me for her death, but he never outwardly showed it. Just, the way he looked at me sometimes—I could it wrenching him apart, just seeing her in my eyes.

Greta, my mother died giving birth to me; just one of the many truths to your precious story. My mother carried me, and I killed her."

I couldn’t handle this. One minute, every falsity I took as some fantastic truth was destroyed. Charles wasn’t my Edward. Now, my best friend was telling me that he was a murderer. I began to tremble. It seemed like the sky was vibrating above me, about to shatter and rain all over me in glassy shards.

"L-Lucas," my voice rasped.

"My father was a vampire," he finished, knocking the wind out of me.

"What—what?" I was squinting; his face was becoming blurry. I realized that tears were forming.

"You know, ‘Renesmee’?" he tried to level with me in words I would understand.

"You can’t," I stated flatly. "You can’t be serious."

"My father fell in love with my mother, Theresa Hunt. From the way he spoke about her, cried for her when he thought I was asleep, the love of your Edward and Bella could have easily been based upon that of my parents.

The day he left me with the Craigs, he explained what I was. Out of pity alone, Judith convinced Stephen that they could try to raise me. She had been unable to have children of her own, so it was easy for her to find room in her heart and home for me. But when things got bad between her and Stephen, and she would leave to cool off, I became more of a liability than anything to Stephen. Next year ends my cycle—I will be completely matured. Stephen and Judith always anticipated the beast I could potentially come. Even as a child, they watched me vigilantly, waiting for me to prey on them. But it wasn’t something I could turn on and off like that. More than anything, even blood, I wanted a family. But like I said, it was only a matter of time before they left me too."

Lucas fingered a pebble in the gutter.

"But what about your father? What made him leave you?" I wondered if I sounded ridiculous, believing him. Perhaps he was waiting for me to take the bait and he would yell ‘Gotcha!" any minute now. But would he really go this far just to pull a prank on me? He continued, squashing that theory.

"Well, it was really for my mother’s sake that he resorted to what your book calls the ‘vegetarian’ diet. But with her gone, there was nothing holding him back anymore."

"Huh," I stared at him, speechless. I scanned the horizon and shuddered at the thought of his father, somewhere out there, feasting.

"Say something," he said after we had sat in silence for what seemed an eternity.

"This is insane," I laid my forehead against the book in my arms.

"Isn’t that supposed to be my line?" Lucas laughed once.

"It used to. But it seems to be the motto of my life these days."

He pinched the pebble between his thumb and index finger, then tossed it into the middle of the street. It became indistinguishable against the gravelly surface of the asphalt.

"Well, at least I have you, Greta." This was the third time he had vocalized this. I smiled at him.

"You'll always have me," I promised.

"The funny thing is, all this time I was trying to talk you out of your little storybook world, I was fantasizing that I was your Edward." He stared at something in the distance. My eyes burned into the side of his face.

Before I could stop myself, I had lunged at him, my lips finding his automatically.

I was shocked to find a slight chill to them. Not quite the stony coldness I had anticipated, but not as warm as human lips should be. Yet they worked all the same, sending reverberating chills throughout my body. His hand was in my hair, pushing me tighter to his face. Twilight slipped from my arms and onto small slice of curb between us.

It was the first time I had ever willingly let the book fall from my grasp. He was the one thing that would ever fit perfectly in my arms now.